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Saturday, February 5, 2011

One Reason to Be Excited for the Super Bowl

It means Glee is back! And Glee means Emma Pillsbury and her cute dresses are back! And she's going to be wearing this Kate Spade number that I've been drooling over from afar!

Do you like how I can make anything about dresses, including football?

Here's Emma in it (with special thanks to WWEPW for alerting me to this!):

I saw this dress in the window of the Kate Spade shop on 20th Street while walking to dinner with Jeff and my brother, Bryan. I was transfixed and made them both stop so I could ogle it for a while. Those roses! Those cute little raglan sleeves! It was about 9 degrees out, and the fellows wanted to, you know, not be hanging around on the freezing sidewalk.

"You can make that," Jeff asserted, in a get-me-the-hell-out-of-here tone.

I tried to explain that it wasn't about the style, but the print. Oh, the print! It has a sort of dreamy, watercolor texture. Yet! The roses are flocked, so I assume they have a velvet-y texture.

Anyway, I was soon almost completely abandoned on a frigid, desolate street corner, so I moved along with the guys. But I just can't stop thinking about this dress! I love anything with roses, and I'm actually somewhat decent at drawing them. I wonder if this effect could be acheived on some silk shantung with the help of a silk paint like Dye-na-flow and some salt?

These people have a wonderful selection of flocked taffeta, but it's curtain fabric - I'm not clear on the difference between curtain taffeta and apparel taffeta. Look under contemporary fabric. I'm particularly taken by the bronze taffeta with fuchsia leaves, myself...http://www.curtainfabricsonline.com/index.php

I recommend using a gutta to outline your flowers in the same color as your dye or in clear. This resist will create a boundary to stop the flow of the dye, giving crisp edges, which is otherwise very hard to achieve on silk.

It's going to difficult to get the gutta to penetrate shantung, you'll have to apply it from the back as well to be sure of preventing gaps in the resist. And getting crisp edges that way could be challenging. Maybe adding a thickener to the fabric paint, instead? Of course, then you won't be able to get those lovely salt effects to the same degree. Hmmm. Some tests are definitely in order.

I personally would not attempt to paint flowers when I know that Chic Fabrics on 39th has a smorgas board of floral silks to chose from. Painting fabric would take up too much time that I'd rather spend sewing or watching Glee.

Oh, I have been lusting after this dress for weeks now! I swear, I could never be a designer, because everything would just be a Kate Spade look-a-like. Her clothes are divine. How Emma Pillsbury (Howell?)affords such amazing clothes on a guidance counselor's salary is beyond me.

If you do decide to try painting the flowers, good luck! I'm sure they will turn out beautifully.

Could be a good project to try silk screening like you posted about a while back. I've never screenprinted on shantung, but it gives a good hand and with the big roses, you wouldn't have to line up the repeats of a pattern. Just make one screen, rotate, and you've got your fabric. I don't know about the salting, though, I've never tried that with screen printing inks.

Oh, that dress is TDF. I can't open my Kate Spade promotional emails - I'll go to the website, look at the clothes, and want to copy every piece.

(PS - have you been to a Kate Spade outlet? There's one in Wrentham, MA, and even closer to me in Clinton, CT.) The deals are crazy. Shoes and bags, and clothes, marked down to $100. Which for KS is a deal.)

ugg, football! The super bowl is in my town this year, we've had a god-awful ice storm topped off with 6 inches of snow, w/ more coming tomorrow! Welcome to Dallas!:) That dress is so lovely, and the fabric tdf. I've never seen anything like it, with flocked roses. So beautiful!

Drool! That is seriously lovely - particularly the way EP (oh alright then, the costume dept) has teamed it with teal and orangey-brown. Goes to show that a striking print can make a very simple dress something special.